Beyond Crazy
by gymnast1150
Summary: She was his weakness. So when she left, so did his sanity. One-shot, the story of Zach's summer when Cammie ran away.


**I know this idea has been done to death, but hey, it's been a few years since Out of Sight, Out of Time came out, so why not bring it back to life?**

 **A huge thanks to my wonderful beta, WordsAblaze, who helped make this story what it is (:**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the Gallagher Girls or any of its characters.**

 **Enjoy (:**

* * *

 _Sometimes all an operative can do is run and not look back. Sometimes, when you're a chameleon, all you can do is hide. And so that's what I'm going to do. Starting now._

 _I'm going to leave this report in the Hall of History, on top of the case with Gilly's sword. Someone will find it there eventually, in the place where this all started._

 _Please don't look for me. Please don't worry. And, most of all, please don't think of this as me running away, but of me running toward._

 _Toward answers. Toward hope. Toward wherever I have to go to finish my father's mission and stop this thing, once and for all._

 _Zach was right—_

Zach threw the mass of papers at the wall, unable to read another word from the post-op report Cammie had written before she'd taken off.

Before she ran and left him behind.

A wave of emotions hit him hard in the chest until it felt like he was drowning. There were so many thoughts running through his head in that moment, he couldn't be sure what he was feeling.

Disbelief, because Cammie would never be so goddamn stupid to run away without backup.

Anger, because apparently, she was.

Hatred, because she dared to leave without telling anyone that cared about her where she was going.

Shame, because she'd rather run away alone than to do so with him.

And finally…guilt.

Guilt because he was the one to put the idea in her head and make her believe running was the only choice left. She'd even mentioned it multiple times in the report saying that he was right. Saying that she needed to get off the grid and hide from everyone looking for her, including those who just wanted her to come home.

He wanted to yell at the top of his lungs, to let out all the anger and confusion using every four-letter curse word he had in his arsenal. He wanted to punch one of the many brick walls within the Gallagher Academy, despite the inevitable damage it'd do to his hand. But most of all, he wanted to find her.

He just didn't know where to start looking.

He sank into the couch and buried his head in his hands, his throat tightening with a moan he couldn't choke back.

He was obviously distraught. Everyone in Rachel's office remained awkwardly still, trying to keep themselves from making any noise out of fear of it pushing him over the edge, which he was thankful for. If anyone dared to try to tell him to calm down, he wasn't sure what he'd do.

"How long do we think she's been gone?" he asked.

Patricia Buckingham held her head high, although her tone was saddened with remorse. "She's been missing for three days."

Zach's head snapped up at the confession, his eyes wild with a rage he never knew he could feel. " _Three days_?" he snarled, skeptical of the fact that the best operatives in the world had failed to notice a missing student for _three freaking days_. "And no one bothered to think she might be _gone_?"

"Cammie disappears into the passageways all the time, Zach. Especially at the beginning and end of the school year," Macey explained with a small shrug, a look of shame crossing her face. "We just thought she was taking her time saying goodbye."

"Sounds to me like she wasted little time with that," he snapped. He knew taking out his aggression on Macey or any of his friends wasn't rational, but it was safe to say that, at this point, Zach was far from his usual calm and collected self. Instead, he flew from his seat beside Liz and began to pace, his hands shoved deep into his disheveled hair.

"Then let's stop wasting ours," Bex exclaimed, sounding more like an order than a suggestion. If anyone would be thinking sensibly at a time like this, Zach figured it would be Bex.

Turning to Rachel, she asked, "When do we leave? Do you have any leads as to—"

Rachel shook her head, interrupting Bex. "You kids are going home to your families. We will find her and bring her back. We'll let you know as soon as we do."

"We're coming with you," Macey declared defiantly. And if her tone wasn't enough, she crossed her arms over her chest, daring the adults in the room to argue with her.

Just as stern and unyielding, Rachel asserted, "Absolutely not." It was clear that she wasn't going to budge. That she would refuse their involvement until her last breath if she had to.

"With all due respect, Headmistress," Liz started, and Zach had no doubt that Liz would never disrespect an adult, much less a Gallagher professor. "No one knows Cammie like we do. We can help."

Rachel was about to argue again when Patricia cleared her throat, and the two older women had a silent conversation with just a single look.

Rachel finally nodded her acknowledgement that Zach and the girls weren't going to accept _no_ for an answer, and gave a big sigh. Zach noticed how tired she suddenly looked, and how much older she appeared to be when weighed down by the fact that her only daughter was chasing a terrorist organization _alone_. He couldn't blame her. The thought of Cammie in danger almost made him sick, too.

Rachel turned back to Zach and Cammie's friends. With as much energy as Zach assumed she could muster, she conceded, "We'll let you know if we find any leads."

* * *

 _Joe's safe house._

The message came three days later. Zach couldn't believe that three simple words could bring him so much relief. Almost instantly, he was jumping in Dr. Steve's car and making his way to Joe's cabin in the woods—the same one that Macey had escaped to earlier that year. He cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner. He was supposed to be the guy who saw her—the guy who knew her better than anyone else because he noticed her even when she was a chameleon. He should've known that she'd have gone looking for refuge at Joe's cabin.

Without wasting any time, he flew from the car and barreled towards the crowd gathered outside his mentor's safe house. He noticed that Rachel had recruited more people into their circle of trust—Abby, Abe and Grace Baxter—but he wasn't in the right mood or mindset to bother with formal greetings.

"Where is she?" he asked instead, completely frantic.

Macey stepped forward, trying to catch his attention, but he was too focused on finding the girl he couldn't stop thinking about, even for a second.

"Zach—" she started, but he ignored her as he rushed into the cabin, only to find it void of the small blonde.

He felt his blood beginning to boil, the pounding in his head blocking out everything other than the one detail he refused to believe; Cammie wasn't there.

Footsteps sounded behind him as others followed him inside. Infuriated, he spun on them, his voice dangerous as he repeated, "Where is she?"

"She's not here," Bex answered bitterly.

"Rebecca…" her mother warned, shooting the younger Baxter a threatening look.

"She's not here!" Bex repeated louder and angrier, despite her mother's warnings. "She's gone. She ran away _alone_ , didn't tell us where she was going, and left us behind to follow her bloody bread crumbs!"

Zach turned away in need to escape. Like Bex, his worries were starting to manifest themselves into the anger he'd been trying so hard to control since news of Cammie's disappearance.

He was almost out the door, seething with heavy breaths and clenched fists, when Macey snapped at Bex, her words stopping him in his tracks.

"We don't have time to be mad! There's a terrorist organization after her and we have no idea who or what she's dealing with."

"Exactly. Because she left," Bex grimaced, and Zach could've sworn he heard a slight waver in her otherwise aggressive tone.

"And until she's back home, our main concern is finding her," Macey countered, her voice laced with finality that left no room for argument. "Only when she's safe can we be mad."

Bex turned away from her with a huff, but immediately wrapped her arms around her middle as she guiltily shrunk into herself.

"If she's not here," Zach turned back to the crowd, "then why did you ask me to come here?"

"Because she _was_ here," Abby told him. She directed his attention to a monitor, where video footage of Cammie inside the cabin played on fast forward.

He watched as the girl on screen spent most days pacing, or doing push-ups and sit-ups well into the night. Then she'd sleep for a few hours and as soon as the sun rose again, she'd repeat the same routine once more. Zach stayed perfectly still, feeling his heart wrench with every day that passed on screen. He counted four of them until the girl had dragged over a chair to stand on, and suddenly Cammie's face filled the screen before everything went static.

"The time stamp says that was two days ago," Abby explained sullenly, hitting pause on the now-black screen.

Zach rewound the tape, stopping it again when he caught Cammie's face on-screen. He took in every detail of her, it all looking the same as it had when he last saw her. The longer he looked, the more he could feel his emotions spiraling out of control.

"Zach?" Liz offered softly.

He tried to swallow away his pain, but when he spoke, his voice was still strained with emotion. "If she's out there, we still need to find her."

Abby shook her head, clearly upset and distressed. "We _did_ find her. Here."

"No, we were too late," he snapped, although more from urgency than anger. "Now we have to find out where she went."

"This was our only lead," Macey told him, her voice deflated as if it was too much effort to fake normalcy. Her face was grim, accepting defeat when she spoke her next words, and Zach could feel a small part of his sanity fracture under what he already knew was true…

"Cammie's gone, Zach."

* * *

Zach was ordered to stay with the Baxters after the incident at Joe's cabin. After missing Cammie by _two short days_ and being left with _absolutely no leads_ , Rachel and Abby weren't thinking rationally and decided that the teens were no longer allowed to be involved. It was agreed upon by the adults that the girls were to spend the summer with their families, and that Zach would join Bex and her parents in London, where someone would be keeping a careful watch over them and making sure they didn't wander off looking for Cammie.

Standing next to the Tower of London's ancient stone walls, overlooking the River Thames, Zach watched as Abe and Grace strolled along the streets hand-in-hand, talking like they were an ordinary couple. He hated that they could seem so secure when his entire world was crumbling with every day they wasted doing mundane things—like "going out and enjoying London".

His mind drifted back to the last time he was there. New Year's Eve. Ice skating. Cammie…

" _You look cold."_

" _I used to have a warmer jacket, but then I gave it to some girl."_

" _That wasn't very smart."_

" _No. It probably wasn't. Besides, it looked better on you."_

His heart ached when he thought about the simple flirting and the subtle touches, something he would give _anything_ for to be doing now.

His eyes strayed to Tower Bridge where that same night, Joe had jumped off and disappeared into the darkness. He wondered if Joe had the right idea—if the bridge was the easiest way to escape the Baxters.

"Don't," Bex warned him.

Zach looked at her, raising his brows in question as to what the word meant.

"I can see the wheels in your head turning. You're trying to find a way to escape. To run." She eyed him, a warning as dangerous as her tone sparking within them. "Don't," she repeated.

"I have to find her," Zach surrendered, knowing he'd be lying if he argued that what she was saying wasn't true. That he wasn't thinking about leaving.

"We will," she promised him.

He snorted, laughing at her ignorance. He was going to argue that her parents never took their eyes off them for a second, acting more as babysitters than guardians, but she beat him to it.

"We'll find a way to get my parents to let us look for her," Bex reasoned. "You don't have to run. Please, Zach." Her eyes softened as she turned to him, her voice trembling as she practically begged him to listen to her.

"Don't run."

* * *

Zach eventually did run. And he was gone for two weeks before he returned to London.

Without Cammie.

The darkness surrounded him as if his life was consumed by a dark cloud, like a blanket permanently cocooning him while he sat in Bex's bedroom in the middle of the night. He didn't know how long he sat there for, but it didn't matter. Nothing did anymore.

Eventually he heard the sound of footsteps. He didn't move, even when Bex opened the door and saw him.

He glanced at her for a second, then decided that it was better not to look at her. But it was too late. In that brief second when their eyes connected, he saw the one thing he prayed he wouldn't; hope.

He could feel her eyes as she took in his appearance, totally wrecked and obviously mentally broken, and her hope diminished. Without a word, she sat down next to him and leaned her head on his shoulder, her disheartened mood mirroring his own.

Silence consumed them, the lack of reassurances only adding to the certainty that Zach failed to find Cammie.

And for that, he'd never forgive himself.

* * *

"Target is in sight."

"Area is clear. You're good to go."

Zach sat casually outside a quiet bistro, listening to the conversation over comms while he munched on whatever the Greeks called their biscuits. Lurking across the street from Abe, who he never lost sight of even as the older man slipped in and out of the crowds, Zach told him through the comms unit, "I'm right behind you."

Covertly, he followed Abe as they wandered through the streets of Greece, following their target from a reasonable distance.

"Looks like the target's heading toward the Santorini Hotel," Zach heard Bex say in his ear.

"Duchess, follow your father. Shadow, get me into their security system and intercept its video signal," Grace ordered from the secure location where she was running surveillance.

"Copy that." Once Zach caught sight of Bex tailing her father, he broke away and headed for the hotel's side door, hoping to steer clear of any worker who might question him.

Tugging on the handle, he realized the door was locked. Quickly but calmly, he made his way towards the back where he knew there was another entrance.

"Shadow, we need the video surveillance," Grace repeated. He knew he was taking too long, but he couldn't draw attention to himself by running around the building, yanking on every door handle he found.

"I'm on it," he assured her as he reached the back door. He cursed under his breath when it wouldn't budge.

"Seriously, Zach. If we don't intercept the signal, we can't get in there undetected," Bex complained, a hint of urgency to her voice.

"I got that," Zach growled, growing slightly irritated. "All these doors are locked. I'm heading back around front and going through the main entrance."

"Hurry."

Picking up speed, despite his natural instinct to take it slow, Zach made his way back out to the main street. He began heading toward the hotel's entrance when a glimpse of blonde hair caught his eye.

"Cammie?" he mumbled to himself, catching sight of the girl again and blindly following her.

Zach wasn't thinking when he pushed his way through the stream of pedestrians that were walking the opposite direction as him, drawing immense attention to himself and earning a couple of glares. He just kept following the girl who weaved around people as effortlessly as a figure-skater glided on ice, Bex's voice in his ear threatening him the whole time.

As the blonde picked up speed, disappearing into the mass of people, his heart began to pound and he searched for her more frantically, shouting her name and shoving people out of his way.

"Are you bloody _insane_?" Bex shouted, and only then did Zach realize she was right in front of him, her face turning red from anger. "Zach, you almost messed up this whole mission for us! If I hadn't picked up your slack, who knows what—"

"She's here," he interrupted her, not really listening to her rant to begin with.

"What?"

"Cammie. I saw her. She's here, Bex," he rattled off, a smile stretching across his lips.

Bex gave him a stern shake of her head and told him, "She's not here, Zach."

"Yes, she is! I saw her," he argued with a joyous laugh. He couldn't believe they finally found her.

"I don't know who you saw, but it wasn't Cammie," she explained, her voice soft but firm.

Zach began to argue, looking around to see if he could spot her again, when Bex grabbed his face and pulled it back to hers.

"Zach—" she started, but he brushed her hand away and continued to look for the girl he knew deep down wasn't there.

"Zach!" She grabbed his face again with both hands and forced him to look at her. "She's not here. You didn't find her."

He saw the truth written on her face, in the pain deeply embedded in her eyes. Bex was right there to catch him when his body collapsed into hers, holding him to her, whispering assurances and false promises that everything was okay. She had become an expert at comforting him since Cammie disappeared, but he knew better than to believe her this time.

Nothing was okay. Not when Cammie was still out there alone and they were too preoccupied with Bex's parents' other missions to be searching for her.

"Why can't we find her, Bex?" Zach asked, wounded and broken.

Bex was always so strong, always in control of her emotions.

And that's why it scared Zach when a tear that wasn't his fell onto his shoulder, and why it hurt like a knife plunging deep into his chest when she spoke and her voice choked on a sob.

"Because she doesn't want to be found."

* * *

The less Zach tried to think about her, the more he thought about her.

And it was driving him crazy.

The few nights he was able to sleep, he dreamt about her. About her being scared and alone, not knowing where to go or who to trust. About her being caught and tortured by the Circle. About her dying alone and them never finding her. The hardest part to handle was how close his dreams were to reality, and that was what terrified him the most.

He knew what everyone saw when they looked at him—the shell of a boy who had lost his mind. He looked wrecked, his entire demeanor changed from _confident teenaged spy_ to someone lost and utterly destroyed by the world around him.

He couldn't talk about his problems with anyone though, because they already worried about him too much. The Baxters watched him like a family of hawks, as if they feared he'd do something irrational and stupid. If he told them about his nightmares and his obsessive thoughts on Cammie being tortured or killed, they'd see him as a liability—someone mentally unstable and weak.

He couldn't talk about it to anyone.

So, he stopped talking altogether.

At first, Bex's parents tried to get him to open up by making sure he knew he was safe with them, but eventually they stopped trying when their efforts went to waste.

But Bex never stopped. She'd have normal conversations with him even though he never responded, talking to him like he was actually present and not stuck on mute.

And he silently thanked her for that every time, because without Bex, he probably would've actually gone crazy.

* * *

"Where is she?"

The man sniffled, his eyes ringed red from the constant tears he'd been shedding since Bex had begun questioning him. "I don't know," he whimpered, his head lolling to one side.

"Wrong answer," Bex snarled, and Zach knew that was his signal.

Without missing a beat, he strode over and hit the man in the face.

"Please!" the man cried before Zach could get in another swing. "I'm telling the truth!"

Bex stood in front of him, squatting down to where she was at eye-level. Ignoring his pleas, she repeated, "Where is Cameron Morgan?"

" _I don't know!_ " he shouted again, tears still streaming down his swollen face. "I don't know who you're looking for and I don't know where she is. I just don't know." His voice was hollow and begging as he continued to sob, "You have the wrong man."

Bex looked up at Zach, their eyes both saying they didn't believe him. She straightened to her full height, then backed away to the far side of the room, giving Zach his space.

Tired of the man's bullshit answers, Zach attacked, letting all his anger and frustration from the past few months of missing Cammie fuel his violence. His fist continued to connect with the man's face until his knuckles were completely covered in a mix of both of their blood, but he didn't stop. The man was completely unrecognizable with his cheek swollen and split open, his eyes bruised black, and blood caked to his skin, but the thought of stopping never entered Zach's mind.

Bex stood there silently, watching as the shell of Zach's body lost more and more of himself to the pain and suffering that eventually engulfed his once-lively spirit.

Finally, she spoke.

"I'm going to ask you one more time," she warned, her voice low and threatening. "Where is she?"

Zach stopped beating him long enough for the man to answer.

With a shaky breath and a wince from the pain, the man whispered as loudly as he could, "Budapest."

Zach dropped his hold on the man, who fell to the floor with a moan as his body thudded onto the concrete. He looked back at Bex, who shared the same expression as he did, the small word echoing in the silence.

 _Budapest._

For the first time in a long time, Zach felt an emotion he'd promised to never let himself feel. One glance at Bex told him that she felt it too.

 _Hope._

* * *

It was a trap.

Grace had located the hotel and room number in which the man they had captured was registered to be staying. Zach had convinced the Baxters to let Bex and himself weasel their way in, only to be met with an ambush.

The only reason they made it out alive was because a Circle member had missed his shot and hit a hotel staff member instead of Zach.

The only thought that ran through Zach's mind was, _Cammie wasn't there._ Even as the bullet pierced the man's chest, even as Bex pulled him to the floor and they ducked for cover, all he could think about was how he'd failed again.

He had let himself believe that it was finally over. That they'd find Cammie and bring her back to Gallagher where she was safe. Where she was out of the Circle's hands.

But none of it was true. Cammie was still out there, no doubt caught by the terrorists looking for her, and suddenly all of Zach's fears were coming true right before his eyes. His recurring nightmares were no longer just dreams—they were reality.

And that's when Zach's last shred of sanity was broken.

* * *

Zach had always been brave. People used words like _courageous_ and _confident_ to describe him. Tough. Daring. Heroic.

Fearless.

And he believed them, because he was trained to.

He believed them so much that he'd became overly confident. Proud. Arrogant, even. Nothing in the world stood a chance against Zachary Goode.

But they were wrong. And so was he.

His professors at Blackthorne had taught him that even the best assassin's in the world had weaknesses, a kryptonite. But he'd brushed it off because only those who had something to lose could have a vulnerability. And he wasn't one of those people.

No one ever told him that one day, he _would_ have something to lose. That he _would_ have a weakness. No one ever told him about Cammie Morgan.

She was his weakness. His kryptonite. The one thing that could make him lose all sense of sanity.

He knew that now.

With her gone, his thoughts were all messed up, jumbled like the remnants of a hurricane. One thought didn't quite connect to the next, and yet that's where his mind ended up. It was as if his brainwaves were skipping with the ropes of his instability and any real concepts just got lost in the middle.

With her gone, he didn't know how to feel. Everything made him feel too much and too little all at once. He spent his days in a bizarre state of limbo, his senses on fire but his emotions nonresponsive.

With her gone, so was the courageous, confident, fearless spy that was Zachary Goode.

With her gone, he lost himself.

And then he truly had nothing left to lose.

* * *

After Zach's mental breakdown, the Baxters had thought it was best for Zach to relinquish his obsessive need to search for Cammie. Zach had agreed, but only because he didn't have the energy, or frankly the mental capacity, to argue.

Though he may have quit looking, he never stopped thinking about her.

There were times he swore he saw her, like back in Greece, but now he knew that they were just hallucinations. Wishful thinking.

School season came around, and it was decided that he was to stay at Gallagher to finish up his senior year.

He hated the idea, because everywhere he went, he saw _her_. And even though he'd been seeing her imagined self for weeks, this was much worse. Not only would he see her, but he'd see himself. He'd see them together, replaying old conversations and cherished memories.

In the library, he'd see them studying, although the only thing he remembered was him thinking about how infatuated he was with her, and how courageous (and yet so dumb) she was to plant bugs in the boys' rooms. In the Grand Hall, he'd see them dancing, her in that beautiful red dress swirling around in his arms and he'd remember the way it felt to hold her. In the foyer, he'd see himself spin and dip her before pressing his lips to hers in a promising kiss. One that promised they'd see each other again.

Little did he know there'd come a time when that wasn't true.

Months went by and it never got easier, but he got better at handling the pain. He could somewhat focus in class, and Bex was always there to kick his butt into gear when he got so distracted that he fell behind on assignments. All of Cammie's friends were there to support him, which made things better and worse at the same time.

He wasn't coping well exactly, but he was coping all the same. Sleep cycles were destroyed and assignments were forgotten, but his acting skills got better and his cocky persona strengthened.

Things were almost starting to feel mundane, but not normal, because things would never be normal without Cammie.

And then he saw her.

 _Really_ saw her.

She had turned a corner, and for a moment he thought it was just another mind trick, because the great Chameleon—the same girl who'd spent all summer hidden—had failed at going unseen.

They stood there motionless. Then he reached out and slid his fingers down her arm, but even then he still wasn't convinced. He was sure that he missed her so much, wanted her to come home so badly, that his hallucinations were becoming stronger—he could actually _feel_ her imaginary figure.

But then, in a voice he hadn't heard for over five months, the ghost whispered, "Zach," and he knew it wasn't his imagination anymore.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading! Leave a review and let me know your thoughts (:**


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